Chef Dennis and his no knead bread~it works!

yes, easy to prepare!

Prep time: 2 hours 10 mins

Cook time: 35 mins

Total time: 2 hours 45 mins

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 3 cups of warm water
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Coarse Salt
• 1 /1/2 Tablespoons of Yeast (2 packets)
• 6 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
• Corn meal for dusting peal
• Flour to dust dough ball

Instructions

1. Start with tap water at about 100 degrees (body temperature), make sure the water is not too hot it will kill the yeast. Colder water is ok it will just take longer to rise, if your letting it sit overnight it really doesn’t matter.
2. Add the yeast to the water and mix it up. Don’t worry if all the yeast does not dissolve, it will finish mixing in the flour.
3. Mix the salt into the flour.
4. Add the flour into the yeast water and start your mixer. (This is wet dough.)
5. Now place your dough into your container. Cover, but not tightly and place on the counter for about 2 hours to rise. (If you don’t have time to wait let it sit out for about a half an hour or so, and put it in the refrigerator overnight, it will rise just more slowly.) The dough does need to sit in the refrigerator after the initial rise for at least 3 hours before using*
6. Now that your dough has set up you are ready to form a dough ball. Pull off about a one pound piece of dough (this recipe will make about 3 loaves this size). This is the only time you really handle the dough. You need to pull it down to form a ball, tucking all the ends in at the bottom. The ball should be semi smooth. I had to add some flour to keep it from being too sticky while forming a ball.
7. Place the dough ball on a cookie sheet with a liberal amount of corn meal under it so it will not stick.
8. Let this dough rise for 40 minutes, and while it is rising preheat oven. I used a 350 oven temperature.
9.  Dust the top with flour and make some light slices into the dough for that artisan look.*
10. Before you place the bread into the oven you need one more thing; in another baking dish, or the broiler tray add two cups of water, the steam it creates will give the crust that nice crackle.This really does give it a wonderful crisp top!
11. I heated up the water in the micro  for a quicker start
12. The dough should have a dark colour (probably darker than you think it should be), this is rustic artisan bread.
13. You may have to experiment a little to get it just right for your oven. Chef Dennis said his oven took 35 minutes to bake the bread.I just tapped the top for that hollow sound,then removed from oven. 

Notes

*Its best to make it a day or two before you need it, remember this dough will last up to 14 days in the refrigerator, and the older it gets the better it will taste. You’ll begin to get more of a sourdough taste as it ages. In fact, when and if  you make a second batch Chef Dennis suggests that you don’t clean out the container and let the scraps of your original dough speed up the fermentation process.
*if you don’t have a bread stone you can bake this bread on a cookie sheet , you just won’t get the crusty hardened bottom to the loaf
*(You can form the dough into a longer loaf if you like, or make a bigger loaf, a bigger loaf may require a longer cooking time though)

This recipe can be found on Chef Dennis's web page: www.askchefdennis.com
This is one of the easiest breads I have ever made. I was not sure about putting the dough in the refrigerator to rise more, but it worked like magic. 

Nothing better than serving it right from the oven with fresh extra virgin olive oil.